Chapter 8: Disceptatio
Seeing as Shinichi wasn't willing to talk any further about his feelings (not that Heiji blamed him. He was having a hard enough time trying to understand this; for Kudo, who was living it? Yeesh), the two detective struck up a conversation about the latest Sherlock Holmes movie, which quickly turned into a debate.
"I'm just saying, there is a healthy dose of subtext," Heiji said. "Goin' both ways, actually."
"Holmes is devoted to the cases," Shinichi argued. "He has no inclination for relationships of any kind. By the original source material, he's definitely asexual."
"Doesn't mean he wasn't in love with either Watson or Irene," Heiji insisted. "Asexual doesn't mean uncaring."
The scowl on the Meitantei of the East's adorable face warned up an upcoming rant, but he was interrupted by the door opening.
"Am I interrupting something?" the doctor asked, one eyebrow raised.
"No," Shinichi muttered, though the glare aimed at Hattori promised a follow up later.
"Are you his guardian?" the doctor - Furude, Heiji read as he snuck a look at his name tag - asked, his immaculate eyebrow going a bit higher.
"Ah, no! I'm just visiting," Heiji protested, hands raised in denial.
"If he were my guardian I'd be in the hospital a lot more," Shinichi deadpanned.
"Oi," Heiji scowled at the chibi's smirk.
"Do you have a number for his actual guardian?" Dr. Furude asked Heiji.
"Yeah, how come?" he asked, taking out his phone and thumbing to his contacts list.
"Well, all of our tests came back good Conan-kun, so you're free to go home!" The doctor smiled saccharinely. "Isn't that great?"
"Un!" Shinichi nodded, smiling widely.
"Sure is," Heiji grinned. He frowned. "Just getting voicemail."
"Leave a message, not like a few more hours will make much of a difference," Shinichi said. "Here, I'll give you occhan's number," he offered to the doctor, who gave him a pen to write on his clipboard.
"I'll have a nurse bring you some fresh clothes," Dr. Furude said.
"You cleaned the ones I... arrived in?"
"Ah, no," Dr. Furude said, suddenly finding his clipboard very interesting indeed. "Mouri-san brought a change for you yesterday. The ones you were wearing when you came in were stained beyond repair."
"I'll have to thank Ran-neechan when I see her next," Shinichi chirped, his voice little kid bright as he tried to defuse the tension.
"Mm, yes," Dr. Furude agreed with a tight smile. "If you need anything, don't hesitate to ring for one of the nurses. He nodded to Heiji and left the room.
"I don't remember neechan sayin' she brought ya clothes," Heiji mused.
"She didn't," Shinichi said. "Say anything, that is. She's got a lot on her mind, it probably slipped."
"Probably," Heiji agreed. He leaned back against the chair, looking up at the ceiling. "D'y have any idea who would do somethin' like this?"
"Someone with guts."
"Metaphorically and literally probably, considering the arms and how much blood there was," Heiji thought aloud.
Shinichi snorted. "That was terrible."
"Got a laugh outta ya."
"I did not laugh."
"Close enough!"
Shinichi rolled his eyes. "Well, they would have to be knowledgeable about KID heists, to send a heist note with enough short notice that the press wouldn't get wind of it but Nakamori-keibu would have time to prepare for it, or at least decipher the message. Although, the message wasn't that difficult, which probably should've tipped us off in the first place," Shinichi added with a grimace.
"But is he callin' out KID or is this a message for someone else?" Heiji wondered. "Nakamori-keibu, or maybe Hakuba?"
"It was luck that Hakuba was there at all," Shinichi disagreed. "I rather doubt our culprit could have planned the cancellation of Superintendent Hakuba's conference."
"The owners of the place get cleared?"
"They weren't acting overly suspicious," Shinichi recalled. "Although..."
"What?" Heiji prompted.
"Pretty much... pretty much all of that blood... it was dumped on me, Hattori," Shinichi said lowly, fingers worrying at the blanket.
"Think it's aimed at you?" Heiji said just as quietly.
"If it were a message to KID about his detectives, then Hakuba, maybe Nakamori-keibu, would have been splashed too. But it was all..." The shrunken teen shivered, blue eyes dark as he leaned forward to pull his legs to his chest. "A message to KID, maybe, but I doubt it. The question is, if I'm the target, then why?"
Kaito chewed on the end of his pen, brow furrowed as he thought over what he was hearing through the bug that he'd planted under tantei-kun's hospital bed. He had to agree with the chibi's logic, though it wasn't entirely impossible that it was a message for KID. He'd declared multiple times that the boy was his favorite rival; add in KID's "No one gets hurt" rule and boom, threatening message.
He rather hoped it was aimed at him, because if it was aimed at tantei-kun, then either someone had figured out his "little" secret, or someone had it out for Edogawa Conan, who for all intents and purposes was seven, and there was a special hell for people who intended children harm, one that Kaito would gladly escort those belonging there to.
He leaned back in his chair, letting the two detectives' voices wash over him. His phone buzzed on the desk and Kaito reached over to grab it. A text from Hakuba- Kaito's breath caught in his throat at the contents.
"Results are in on the victim's fingerprints. Match to partials in several unsolved murders in Japan, two in America, and one in England."
Well, that certainly explained why no one had come forward yet pertaining to the victim's identity, Kaito thought. He sat still, looking at his phone for a long moment before setting it down. There was no use in upsetting either of the detectives right now, not when tantei-kun was getting out of the hospital and would be back in trouble soon enough with his luck. Add tantei-han's presence and Kaito would honestly not be very surprised if a whole troupe of skydivers' parachutes failed and their bodies ended up right in front of tantei-han and tantei-kun with a large cartoonish "SPLAT".
He shook his head to rid himself of such morbidness. He really needed to stop spending so much time with detectives. They were such buzzkills, even when they weren't present!
On the other end of the bug there was the sound of cloth rustling. Not for the first time, Kaito mentally kicked himself for the fact he hadn't planted a camera to go with the bug. He was fairly certain that if anything bad were to happen tantei-kun would get at least one shout off, but guessing was annoying. But maybe...
Kaito stood and walked over to where a couple of his more energetic doves sat on an empty mannequin. "Hey," he cooed, scritching his favorite, Ami, under the chin. "You wanna do me a favor and go watch our favorite tantei?" She titled her head fifty degrees, blinking her beady little bird eyes at him. "Make sure he doesn't get into too much trouble?" Kaito asked. Ami butted her head against his hand and Kaito grinned. "Good girl. Now where did I put that velcro?"
Haibara Ai was on the warpath. Well, not the actual warpath, after all if she was there would be a lot more screaming and dissections. Nevertheless, anyone who crossed her path would be questioning themselves for hours on why such a cute little girl could strike such terror into their hearts just by being in close proximity to her. The answer, that she was a shrunken prodigy scientist who had worked for a cutthroat cult-ish organization since she had been a child the first time around, was not the obvious (or even probable) one, but correct nonetheless.
So when she opened Kudo-kun's hospital door and greeted him and Hattori with a cheerful, "Good afternoon Edogawa-kun, Hattori-san," she was pleased to note the sweat gathering at their temples, their widened eyes, and the stutter when they returned her greeting. She smiled at Hattori as he stood up, letting her have his chair.
"Thank you Hattori-san," she said. "Now," she continued as she sat, smoothing out the light blue skirt she was wearing, "we have a few minutes before hakase is done finding a parking spot, so if you have anything you'd rather not say in front of him, now is the time."
Chapter title translation: Reasoning
A/N: Hey, sorry for the wait! Trying to juggle work with writing is a lot harder than it was with school, since if you don't work you can't earn money which you really really need to be able to live, but if you do work it leaves you mentally and physically exhausted lol
Anywho, it won't be quite as long before the next chapter x3;; Onto the anon reviews (oldest to newest), and I hope y'all enjoyed the chapter!
Guest: Yeah, I'm back! xD Glad you like the story so much, hope this chapter is to your liking as well :)
Jelp: Oh my gods all the things Shinichi has seen, it's fucking ridiculous this hasn't happened sooner. Though apparently the events of the manga have taken place in less than a year so I guess that's why we haven't seen anything more than paranoia (which let's face it is well-earned) but also probs bc Gosho's writing mystery, not realism x3 Which also explains why the everloving FUCK the Shounen Tantei have not received counseling for all the dead bodies they have seen bc jfc they are all six/seven years old PLS SEND THEM TO A COUNSELOR OR SMTH PLS
Me Not You: I'll admit, when I first read you missed Yami and Bess I laughed so hard, bc they were the result of my YGO phase and a strange phase in high school where me and my bestie were like "what if we had Tok'ra symbiotes what would they be called?" and I named mine Bess after Bess Marvin from Nancy Drew and tbh reading my old author's notes is really super embarrassing BUT I'm glad somebody found them entertaining! Conan-kun will be around sort of soon-ish, not this chapter, possibly the next or the one after that. He really needs hugs, he really does, both Conan and Shinichi both. Fortunately I have a Conan plushie which I can use in place of the "real" thing ^_^ Glad you liked the last chapter, and I hope you like this one too!
Guest: Creepy is kind of what I'm aiming for xD Glad you're liking the story regardless :)
kaishin fan: I'm glad you're liking the direction the story's heading! Here's the new chapter, hope you like this one too ;)
Oh, my fav part of writing this chapter was "Heiji protested, hands raised in denial" bc right after I wrote it I just kinda went "heiji, everything about you is in denial lol"